Mastodawn

Mahmoud - محمود عبدالجواد Jul 4, 2023

@clifff if this is a #Mastodon interface? Then #Threads must be blocked from all of #fediverse to prevent our content gets leaked to #meta / #Facebook. Yes, I know everything on fediverse is public and can be easily scraped, but I still wouldn't like Meta to have it on a golden plate without any effort.

Also, it is still possible some conversations are not meant to be public.

Cc.: @Gargron

Noah Gibbs Jul 4, 2023

@mahmoudajawad @clifff @Gargron An awful lot of Mastodon data is simply not locked behind anything. Blocking the Threads app won't do much in that case.

The screenshots above are Threads asking the user's phone for data stored on that phone, and won't affect other users.

Not saying it's not a problem. But it shouldn't affect any user other than the one installing Threads. It's around as intrusive as TikTok or Facebook.

The Actual Brian Jul 4, 2023

Also, all this blocking and #fedipact is just panicking.

If blocked, you MUST use their app to interact with those people.
If not, there's a huge community coming that we can interact with without giving up data.

I wouldn't doubt it if Meta started or fueled the panic so you'll have to give up your data when your non technical family and friends move in.

Noah Gibbs Jul 4, 2023

I can't imagine Meta had to start a panic over this. Given what Mastodon is and does, this was going to be something a lot of people worry about. Not even unreasonably.

In order to intentionally start a panic over this and risk getting caught, Meta would need to be significantly more worried about Mastodon than yet seems likely.

The Actual Brian Jul 4, 2023

I don't think they're worried.
I think they want to be isolated from the greater fediverse.
If they're the dominant server and you must use their app, then they get your data or you are isolated from the majority.

Besides, you're correct. They didn't have to start it.
I wouldn't put it past them, but they didn't have to.
This is "The Monsters are Due on Maple St."

Frankly them being isolated from the larger fediverse may be the best choice for the rest of us.

It's got precedent. I mean, Gab and Parler are ActivityPub and isolated like that, and mostly it just works out.

We can't stop them, but mostly don't have to deal with them. It might as well be an entirely different tech.

So, decide for everyone to block entire, large servers because, ... why?

Why decide to blanket block anything to do with Meta before it even exists?

Noah Gibbs

Short version: to avoid the same problem as Google with XMPP, Microsoft with SMTP, etc.

To avoid the leverage and pressure they gain by interoperating - they can make incompatible extensions to ActivityPub. Once they do that, we're stuck either supporting that (expensive, kills dev momentum) or not supporting it (being second-class citizens on our own servers.)

You could say "Meta won't do that" and I'd say "that seems very, very unlikely."

Because Embrace/Extend/Extinguish is the corporate default, Meta is extremely likely to do that, and it's a really ugly situation once they start doing it.

The only way that *doesn't* happen is if Meta has a *lot* of respect for ActivityPub in a way that seems actively detrimental to their own corporate bottom line.

The odds do *not* seem high.

The other obvious point for us to object is when they add extra new features ("Extend") - where we can let Meta decide what development Mastodon et al have to do, and/or not add the features and be "worse".

It's not a better point. But waiting longer than that is even worse.

The least painful point to say "seriously, no" is at the "Embrace" stage.

Another way to think about it: if we cut them off after there are, say, 50,000 follows back and forth between Meta-based services and non-, then we're cutting off 50,000 follows "for no reason".

If we do it now, we're cutting off many potential follows but zero that actually exist.

And if we refuse to *ever* cut them off, we're setting the fediverse back by 10+ years as Meta screws it over.

There's no *good* time to do it. Least-bad is now.

@codefolio
@mahmoudajawad @clifff @Gargron

False dichotomy.
It's not now or never.

Not at all.

When they add features that look bad on the rest of Mastodon, we could absolutely cut them off then.

Then people moving from regular Mastodon to Meta would have to do it to get the new features *and* to keep follows to their side.

The incentives to move to Meta get stronger if we wait.

That has nothing to do with your knee jerk reaction and shows that it's not now or never.

People are going to go to Meta because they'll have a fully featured app, they won't have to know how the back end works, and everyone they know will be there.

Mastodon dropped the ball on all that and Meta is picking it up and running with it.

Blocking them only drives more people away.
Acting like it's rational to act out of fear doesn't help either.

Noah Gibbs Jul 6, 2023

@TheActualBrian @mahmoudajawad @clifff @Gargron Ah, got it.

*That's* what you want.

Yeah, Mastodon is never going to be for you.

That's cool.

But then why are you bothering with Mastodon instead of going to one of the walled gardens? There are plenty.

Trying to argue that Mastodon should *be* a walled garden will never work. It's not structured like that, and it's specifically defended *against* ever being that.

The Actual Brian Jul 6, 2023

I never said it should be like other social media.
I said that if you want it to grow, you must embrace the general public.
I said that you'll never get the general public here without simplicity.

Good god, federation was a good idea, yeah, but like EVERY system implemented by techs with no input from support, you ARE a walled garden because you exclude anyone but tech nerds.

Keep trying to avoid that one, simple fact.

Nothing has happened, but you KNOW what the ONLY solutions are.

It's funny. I hear completely different arguments from everyone and they're all just trying to justify fear in whatever context I asked.

Everyone is simply afraid of losing control of the thing they imagine they are God/king of and losing control is inevitable unless you want to never grow.

I mean... Do you see any scenario in which Facebook does *not* add incompatible features to ActivityPub? I can't imagine a plausible one. And then this goes the same way similar situations do.

Yes. I do.
They do or they don't.
Whatever profits them more.

FFS, they're profit driven, not out to get you.

And, if they do, you did it to yourself and are just pissed that someone else made a more popular platform than you did.

You paranoids have been demanding people ban the larger instances and verbally lynching admins for talking to Meta because you "kNoW" what they must have said, just like you just "kNoW" it's the only possibility.

Noah Gibbs Jul 6, 2023

Let's be clear: I'm very intentionally *off* the more popular walled-garden platforms. They still exist.

I'm here for the weird hippie hacker built-by-transfolk-and-furries co-op vibe.

I do not *want* massive popularity, particularly if it destroys that.

The Actual Brian Jul 6, 2023

That's nice. You want to hide. Fine.

I never said it implied you couldn't do that.
I was saying that IF people didn't want Mastodon to wither and die or, at best, forever be an obscure afterthought, it has to grow and growth means bring in the general public.

It's astounding how thick people who believe they're intelligent and correct can be. I've been repeating that and you just keep trying to find some way around it.

More straw men.
Not the only way.

Straw man. No one said they won't.

If they do, act then.

It's open source. That's, what I'm continually told, is the beauty of it, and now it's only open if certain people are not panicked by what one might do.

Prejudgment.

Also, if they do, they cut themselves off.
So what?

The thing is, if they do that, they *don't* cut themselves off. They make the rest of Mastodon look like a second-class service while taking a lot of the Mastodon userbase with them. "Join us or watch your service slowly degrade as other people use Meta-specific features that look lousy or just don't show up on your server."

@TheActualBrian @mahmoudajawad @clifff @Gargron Open Source fixes some problems but not others.

XMPP was open-source, including the significant majority of clients. SMTP was open-source in the same way.

Open Source doesn't magically make this go away, which is why there's a history of it causing severe problems to established Open Source ecosystems.

I'm not opposed to other actions. Defederation might be extreme. Maybe there's something better that's not as extreme.

I'm not sure what.

But "wait and see" is just giving them more leverage for the obvious ugly showdown. So that doesn't seem like a good compromise.

HA!

You have zero leverage.

It's open source. You can't stop them.
The main, Mastodon App being the killer app was the one and only chance of dominating the platform, but everyone wanted to believe that a million, tiny servers with hundreds of apps would magically protect them.

Mastodon is leaving them behind because they're trying to hold it back.

Noah Gibbs Jul 6, 2023

It's interesting that you accuse everybody else of "knowing" exactly what's going to happen as we say, "if X then Y, but if Z then W" while you're saying exactly what you believe MuSt HaPpEn (to use your own convention.)

It's open-source. We *can* stop them. Gab and Parler use ActivityPub and what's approximately Mastodon. They're not federated with the rest of us, even though that would mean more users.

More users != destiny.

The Actual Brian Jul 6, 2023

Oh, for fucks sake, your arguments are about as sound as a Trumpers and about to nothing more than a cult like belief that you all have some kind of power to control and shape this place.

All you'll do is strangle it.

What's worse, now you're proudly proclaiming you DON'T want more users.
Good god, you all really do just want your own little fiefdom to rule over.
King of you double digit users.

Whatever. Embrace obscurity. It's all you'll have now.

Guess what.
Mastodon IS a second class service!

I've been saying, for months, that the way to grow Mastodon is to have one, official app that's FULLY featured, because the general public won't use something that requires technical, back end knowledge to use.

People keep telling me that's wrong, and Meta is about to show them just how wrong they are!